The Game Innovation Lab is a research lab led by Professor Tracy Fullerton, and housed within the Interactive Media Division in USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. The mission of the lab is to pursue experimental design of games in cultural realms including art, science, politics and learning.
The international success of games that have emerged from the lab, including Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying, The Cat and the Coup and The Night Journey, have made it a hub for games culture in Los Angeles.
Associated faculty include game designers Richard Lemarchand (Uncharted series), Peter Brinson (Waco, The Cat and the Coup) and Jeremy Gibson as well as pioneering games user researcher Dennis Wixon.
The lab has a strong history of collaboration with cross-disciplinary experts in many fields, including education and technology. Our commitment to an iterative, participatory process brings users and designers into constant dialogue.
Current projects, such as the Collegeology suite of games and Walden, a game, are supported by The Gates Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Gilbert Foundation, and The Department of Education.
While there are many areas of game design the members of the lab community are pursuing, the top-level initiatives of the lab focus on the following areas of investigation:
- Experimental game design
- Games and learning
- Games user research, analysis and metrics
- Game aesthetics
- Narrative play
- Emergent world design
- Communities of play
- Convergence and cross-media play